AgroStar and IBM to Help Farmers Make Informed Decisions for Better Crop Output

AgroStar, India’s foremost AgTech start-up, aims to transform the agri-business for farmers in rural India by using hyperlocal weather forecast data and insights from The Weather Company, an IBM Business, to help farmers make informed decisions for better crop output.

This collaboration will enable the two companies to provide critical insights on crop disease risks, and probability of occurrence of a particular pest or disease with high levels of accuracy in crops like cotton, potatoes, chili, etc. These insights delivered to the farmer through AgroStar’s voice and digital platform has the potential to increase crop yield and reduce the extent of crop damage.

AgroStar has acquired a large and accurate database of farmer profiles that comprise data points like crops sown, land size, land type, irrigation facilities, along with agronomic profiling of farms and the ability to determine crop life cycles. These inputs are combined with The Weather Company’s disease and pest forecast algorithms and datasets to equip farmers with the information they need for effective management at every stage of the crop. This will help farmers take proactive steps towards effective crop management versus addressing problems reactively post-occurrence. This pre-emptive and scientific method of pest and disease management will lead to the reduction of production costs and the growth of good quality crops.

"AgroStar is clearly establishing a complete market place for the Agrarian economy to ensure that farmers have access to the right information at the right time to take the best interventions in order to improve outcomes. With hyperlocal weather insights from The Weather Company, farmers now know when precisely to schedule these interventions. We are excited to partner with AgroStar to address this market," says Himanshu Goyal, India Sales & Alliances Leader at The Weather Company.

AgroStar has been solving some of the biggest problems in Indian agriculture, among them accessibility to quality inputs and guidance of agronomy advisory for progressive farming. Combined with crop health insights from The Weather Company, accurate advisory services will be provided through the AgroStar platform that connects with more than 1 million farmers across the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. This collaboration will have a direct positive impact on input costs, crop yield, and farmers’ income, thereby making a significant contribution to Indian agriculture.

“We are very excited to deliver at scale, near precision agriculture practices to small and marginal farmers in the country by combining our agronomy expertise and on ground farmer data with The Weather Company’s hyper local weather capability and robust disease prediction algorithms” said Shardul Sheth, Co-founder of AgroStar.